‘Completely floored’

Gas is back on at Brookside Manor, but some residents say compensation offered is not enough

Residents at the Brookside Manor apartment complex in Hatfield are back in their apartments, but that doesn’t mean they are done with the repercussions of a weeklong natural gas outage.

At least one resident is planning to withhold her rent and is considering legal action to seek compensation for expenses she and her family incurred during the week they were without gas service.

“Ultimately they have provided compensation, but it’s circumstantial. Tenants will only receive the partial credit if they pay their outstanding rent by April on their revised timeline for payment,” said resident Ama Day. “I am completely floored.”

Starting on March 25, residents’ gas service was cut off due to a leak that had been detected and needed repairs. Residents were not required to leave

their apartments, but several contacted Digital First Media and said they were unable to cook with ovens, had no heat beyond space heaters, and had to use small appliances to heat water for cooking and bathing.

All but 44 of the apartment units had their gas services reconnected by

Monday, April 3, and the final 44 were connected on Wednesday, April 5, according to Morgan Properties Senior Vice President of Operations Brent Kohere.

“Restoring service was a great coordinated effort between the Morgan Properties team, the vendors, and various agencies and we thank all for their efforts. Mostly we thank our residents for their patience and cooperation,” Kohere said in a statement

provided by Morgan Properties, the owners of the apartment complex.

PECO spokesman Ben Armstrong confirmed Wednesday that natural gas service had been restored to the entire complex and said the cause would have to be provided by the customer “as the issue was with customerowned equipment.”

Morgan did not respond to requests for information about the cause.

When asked about compensation

for costs residents incurred while their gas service was out, Morgan said in a statement “that has been resolved with all of the residents.”

That resolution, according to Day, is what she’s considering taking to court. According to Day, Morgan has offered a credit based on the size of each affected apartment, provided rent payments are received by next week, and gas charges may receive credited reductions

once they are calculated.

Day said her family incurred more than the credit would cover just from food expenses due to family members’ dietary needs, and the next week’s deadline for the credit may have been meant to prevent a tactic attorneys have advised: placing rent for the time the gas service was unavailable into an escrow account while the situation is reviewed in court.

“I think this is a ploy to make sure people pay their rent without negotiating expenses so Brookside won’t lose out on money from their rental properties,” Day said. “If they were truly compassionate, if rent came on their new revised due date or not, the credit should remain, because the outage happened, period. I have notified them that our rent will be placed in escrow until this matter is resolved. Hopefully they will reconsider their decision.”